What+is+it?

=What is a Writer's Notebook?=

Let's start with what it's not - thanks to Steve Willy and Keay Cobbin (Bastow Institute)

 ¡ **What’s it’s not:**  § A reading log   § A new name for a “journal”   § A response journal in which students and teach conduct a back and forth dialogues   § A booklet for kids to collect teacher-generated worksheets or support materials for writing  Now what it is - according to Ralph Fletcher (courtesy Steve Willy and Keay Cobbin - Bastow Institute  What it is   ¡ ** Blank book where a writer can engage in the fun messy job of writing **  § Listing   § Playing with language   § Gathering ideas, images and insights   ¡ ** Nourish writing ** ** ¡ Encourage the writer to take a ‘long view’ ** ** ¡ It’s about developing the writer – Creators initiators of writing ** ** ¡ Builds stamina ** <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> Low-risk, high comfort zone  <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> ¡ Attitudes : Students are loving it. They are wanting to write, focused for the whole Independent Writing block, many students want to take their notebook home and they are enjoying being given any classroom time as opportunity to write in it. Writer’s workshops have improved as a result too. <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> ¡ Quality of Writing : The teachers are learning some things about their kids from the notebooks. They have noticed that there has been a lack of understanding of different writing genres across the students as most are writing personal recounts. At this stage Amy and Craig have focused on just increasing the amount of entries, before they start to look at spelling, vocab, etc. <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> ¡ <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; language: en-AU; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: .48in; margin-top: 0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; punctuation-wrap: hanging; text-align: left; text-indent: -.35in; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"> ¡ Quantity by students : There has been a difference in the amount of entries when the kids who love writing (usually) are compared to the ones who don’t. However, students who have usually been quite reluctant to write are making entries – those who enjoy writing tend to make extra entries. Some students who have shown a disinterest in writing in the past are still putting up that front, but actually going away and making entries, when usually they would not complete work during independent writing.